You gotta go over to 4simpsons real quick and scan down the front page looking for Neil's "multiverse" post, or google it if it has already rolled off. I don't want to trigger his paranoia with too many links but this is amazing!

Um. The Multiverse Theory pre-dates the Intelligent Design political movement.

The Multiverse theory is described by mathematics. The Intelligent Design political movement cannot be described according to any coherent organizational model.

But theoretical Physicists are just scrambling to scratch up something to answer Intelligent Design with.

Uh huh. Whatever helps you sleep at night, Neil baby.

But I'd like to point out that the only way that the Multi-verse theories could have been created to respond to Intelligent Design is if the scientists developed them after 1992 (When ID was created) and then went back in time a significant amount, and then introduced a progressive series of theoretical models beginning with when the term was coined in the late 1800.

Of course, the only way that time travel would be even remotely possible is if one of the multiple universe theories were true... (since going back in time and changing events would create another alternate universe, and an alternate time-line).

And furthermore, why are we to believe that scientists are desperately flailing around to discount the arguments of ID proponents when ID proponents seem to have to be always making statements like this?:

[Update] about not provoking his paranoia: Too late. Neil is already Jonseing on how persecuted he is that people disagree with him and find his lunacy entertaining. He only listed three people this time. Usually he goes on much longer about how important an Godly he must be because people disagree with him.

If you read it, you will see that originally, it was intended to question the out-sized expectations and exceitment that is Obamamania.

You will also see that the creator of the piece is an Obama "fan"...but a cautious one. Remembering that he is just a man.

The right has tried to inflate him to some out-sized anti-Christ, saying somehow he will march down our streets and collect our guns and Bibles, and have his Kenyan relatives put a witch -curse on us.

Some in the left seem to have forgotten that most of his campaign promises came with a "we will" in front of them, not an "I will".

But for one week I enjoyed walking around in Spain getting friendly smiles and thumbs-ups from strangers saying "Obama!". Having strangers tell me over beer that America has a history of doing things that no other country would do, and now once again, we have done something that no other country would do, and it is good.

It was described to me as a return to greatness, a rise in the moral mandate of America in the world...a leader (America) showing the way into a better future. It could have been the beer, but this recent election was spoken of with admiration and happiness to me by British, Norwegian and Spanish people. They couldn't stop telling me about how great America was (and is), though they were a little worried about us for a while there.

A waitress with no English at all tried to give me a newspaper with Obama on the cover, announcing his election. Everywhere I went, people asked me how I voted. Even though Obama was not my first choice way back at the beginning, I was happy to be able to say I voted for him...but when the hype dies down, I hope that people remember how he talked about how this was going to be difficult, and not everyone would be happy with every decision, and how we were going to have to do it together, and something would be asked of all of us, and it would be more than just "take a trip to Disney World" or "buy yourself a flat-screened TV for Christmas."

(BTW, does everyone remember when the conservative perscription to fix the economy was "go out and buy stuff"...and now suddenly it's the liberals' fault that people were buying too much damn stuff? What is up with that?)

Speaking of going forward and not going back, vote with your wallet! You can go here to find out which businesses and business owners contributed money to pass "Proposition 8". In this way, you can then decide if you want your money to go to a business that will take some of the profits and turn it into funding for a divided, unequal America.

If you don't think that it's a big deal that the government can seize lap-tops, books, magazines, or any other information media from people when they are traveling, and don't need a compelling reason to do so-

-I assume this might be because you don't travel and won't be inconvenienced, or you think you have nothing to hide.

I've never before put images of my kids or any other kids below the age of 18 on my blog. But looking at all that is out there, and considering Tim is now 15 and the size of a tall adult...and a trained martial artist...I suppose I should stop being so over protective.

Besides, these pictures are so great.

My oldest son, Tim (AKA Adventure Boy) is currently in China for a two-week cultural exchange field trip with his school. Last summer, we hosted two boys from Loudi at our house, and this year, Tim went to stay with the family of one of those boys. That boy's name is XiaoSui

XiaoSui wrote an e-mail to me and informed me that his family had taken 1300 photos during Tim's five-day visit to Loudi.

Here are some of them:

First, there was a warm greeting at the airport as the group flew in from Bejing:

Here you see Xiaosui's mom, Xiaosui in the blue shirt, and another visitor from last summer, Lei. He did not stay with us, but he spent a lot of time at our house and sends me regular e-mails.

Here's Tim getting a Kung Fu lesson. The boy on the far right is the other boy who stayed with us: Zhexin. Last I heard, he was the #1 ranked student in the school. Whatever his current ranking...he's one smart kid, and also very nice.

Tim teaches the Chinese about "Moose Ears":

The Eden Prairie Delegation was exposed to a great deal of traditional Chinese culture:

And apparently the Chinese kids and the Eden Prairie kids were mixed into teams and sent through an obstical course:

Tim going over the wall:

Tim crossing a rope bridge:

Apparently they gave him some beautiful shiney clothes. Gifts are an important tradition in China:

I just like this picture of Tim and Xiaosui:

Tim and host family:

The family also gave Tim a Chinese name: Xiaoping, Which means "safe". It is traditional for brothers to have the same first character in their names, so as Xiaosui's "international brother", Tim's name would naturally begin with "xiao".

Day three in Maine began with us running Alicia and her kids to another museum, this time in Bar Harbor. After some minor logistical issues were ironed out, Sue, Barb, and I were on our way on a whirl-wind tour of the Harbor. Our first stop was Seal Harbor. We enjoyed that very much. Seal Harbor has a very cute beach, and there are many cool rocks there, as well as a very nice view.

Sue's daughter, Panda Girl found a rock in the water, and held it up "Hey! This looks like the Virgin Mary!" It did, sort of.

I said "Well, if we had a Joseph and a baby Jesus, we could make a Nativity Scene."

Barb caught the fever, and we began looking for rocks.

In the end, this is what we came up with:

The green rock is Mary, the blue is Joseph bowing his head over the cradle. You can see a shepherd and his sheep kneeling in front of Mary, and the three wise men there on the left.

An older woman and her 90-somthing-year-old father came to investigate what all the activity was about. They were thrilled, and took many pictures as well. We left the nativity there for others to see. I wonder how many people noticed it, and how many figured out what it was supposed to be. We like to do stuff like this...leave little mysteries and strange things behind us in our wake for others to make of whatever they will.

I also found a rock that looked like the Stone tablet of the Ten Commanments, but we didn't have time to do a stone diarama of Moses descending the mountain. Also, we would probably be pushing our luck trying to hunt down a stone that looked like a golden calf.

We then caught the Bar Harbor bus and rode to Jordan Pond, where Sue and Panda Girl sang the praises of that most wonderful of places. We ordered lunch. I had lobster stew and pop-overs. It was delicious, but I needed to take a picture because if I died that night, I wanted people to get a good look at what killed me.

That, my friends is molten butter, floating on the top of enough hot, steamy cream to cover an entire lobster cut into chunks. The week after this I went to the Dr. for my yearly check-up. My cholesterol is normally 170 or lower. This bad boy is what I blame for my much elevated score of 202.

We took a short stroll down to see the lake up close and personal. You can see it there, in the background, and you can see what a lovely place this was to spend an hour eating pop-overs and Lobster Stew.

We had a wonderful server, who was friendly and helpful and just lovely. She kept saying "You are so nice to serve, so simple! So easy!" She was delighted at our obvious enjoyment of the food and our appreciation for the scenery and the wonderful experiance we were having. English was not her first language, so I assume that calling us "simple" was a compliment.

When it was time to go, she brought our check and said "Thank you for coming, I love you all." An absolute sweetheart.

After out stroll down to the lake, we lingered too long, and found that we had only minutes to reach the bus to go on to the next site. We sprinted up the hill, and found that the bus was a little late. Fortunate...as some of us needed to visit the ladies room.

We moved on to Sand Beach. That was really awesome. Plus, I found lots of sand dollars. We did some rock climbing. I ran wind sprints back and forth on the beach through the surf, because I needed to do something after that outrageously decadant lobster stew. There was also an opportunity for rock climbing.

Although, due to the rain, it was difficult and slippery. The sand part of the beach was behind me as I took this picture.

We had so much fun at sand beach, that the 1/2 hour we had there wasn't enough, and we ended up missing the bus. We wanted to go on to see Thunder Hole, which Barb and I had not seen. But we were going to have to catch the next bus, and the next bus was the LAST bus of the day that we could catch and still make it back to our car. it looked as though we were going to miss Thunder Hole, when who should come to our rescue, but a couple of young Good Samaritans.

Here's a picture of them:

They offered to drive us in their rented Saturn. Barb, Panda Girl and I squeezed in the back. Sue stayed behind (there wasn't enough room for her) and waited for the next bus. Thank you very much, kind, generous, adorable Good Samaritan Couple! Sorry for the three wet butt-prints on the seats of your rental car. Hope that didn't cause you any problems.

Here's a picture of Thunder Hole:

As youcan see, the name comes from the loud booming noise that the water makes when it crashes into this hole here. We got a couple of decent booms out of it, but I guess it's much more spectacular when the tides are coming in.

We went from there to Bar Harbor, where we walked around a little, had some ice cream, did some shopping, and rejoined Alicia and her kids on the last bus back to Seal Harbor, and our car.

We ended the evening with a very odd dinner of left-overs as we tried to clean up the odds and ends of our food. We would be leaving the next day, and didn't want to have to drag a lot of food with us.

Thank you to Sue and Panda Girl, who were excellent guides, and who did a great job of getting us to the highlights of Bar Harbor in one short day!

(Or Sue and Barb and Teresa meet the nice, but slightly scary woodswoman)

The next morning, it had been decided that we would all get back in the cars and drive back to Bangor so that Alicia could bring her four children (ages 9 years to three months) to a Children’s Museum there.There had been talk of white-water rafting, but since Alicia has health concerns that prevent her from driving, and Val didn’t want to drive on unfamiliar roads, Sue would have to drive the Expedition with Alicia, Valand the kids, it was apparent that we would not have time to drop them off AND go whitewater rafting.Barb was willing to drive, but she wanted to go with Sue and I and she was only added as a driver on my car anyway, and it wasn’t big enough to hold Alicia and her family (more on that later). Val agreed to drive the Expidition home, however, so Sue would be able to ride with Barb and I as we explored the park.

Barb drove to Bangor, and we chatted.I tried not to think about the fact that we were driving back about 1/5 of the distance we had traveled yesterday to get to the cabin.

We drove up to a mountain on the Appalachian Trail, called Mount Katadhin.For some reason, I was over-come with fatigue, and fell asleep in the back seat while Sue and Barb visited.Sue had read a book about a couple of travelers who had left the AT and had come out of the woods near the Katadhin Iron Works.

Lo and behold, we saw a brown sign pointing to them, about the time I woke up, so we decided to go see what was there.A long and scenic drive down a gravel road.We met a bright red mustang driving like a bat-out-of hell, and wondered what THAT was all about.

We finally got to the iron works, and there we met Fran.

Fran is the caretaker of a gate into the Kl-Jo Mary Multiple Use Management Forest.She makes sure everyone follows the rules, looks out for people, registers guests,and a variety of other things.We told her about the woman in the Mustang, and Fran said “Yeah, was SHE pissed off”.Apparently, the woman had dropped her car off at the Mary Lake Gate and had someone drive her to another gate, with the intention of walking the trail in between.Trouble was, that she was actually parked two gates away, so when she asked the other gate-keeper how far the hike was to the next gate, the gate-keeper said “six miles” when the hike the woman had to make to get back to her car was actually closer to 13.She was PISSED and took it out on Fran.

At the end of the story, Fran flashed a double-barreled Eagle (one of these, not one of these) and threw a cheery “have a nice day” in the direction the woman had gone.

We walked around the Katahdin Iron Works a little and then went back and visited with Fran.

Sue had a Bar Harbor sweatshirt on, and asked Fran what it said.Fran mugged a face like she was ready to chew rock and spit nails, but she complied.

“Bah Hahbah”, she said, bracing for our exclamations of delight at the Maine accent.I told her about being cornered by little old ladies in Winn Dixieand made to speak in my “Yankee accent”, and that seemed to level the field a little.

Fran had lots of stories for us.Some of them are depressing, but wait for the last one, its sort funny and sweet.

There was the story of the woman who left the AT during a season when the bugs were particularly bad.The mosquitoes and black flies are apparently always pretty bad in the Spring, but they were unusually bad that year.The woman came to Fran’s post in the middle of the night.She was traumatized and hysterical.Fran made her tea, and tried to talk her down.Thewoman kept saying “I slept in an outhouse, I slept in an outhouse.” Over and over again.She had taken refuge in an outhouse to get away from the bugs, and stayed there rather than brave the bugs long enough to pitch a tent.The woman was taken in by a group of people that take in hikers off the AT.

Fran said that a lot of hikers that leave the trail come back to finish it.That woman didn’t.

Fran showed us pictures of some of the beautiful waterfalls in the park, and how they freeze in the wintertime.

She told us a story about a professional ice-climber, who had a guide business in the area.He came to the park with his daughter.He was going to climb the frozen waterfalls, and his daughter was going to take pictures for his promotional literature.He fell from the waterfall and was killed.It took days to recover his body.

Fran told us about two boys who had come to the park every fall with their uncle from the time they were little.They would come and hike and jump off of small waterfalls in the park.One year, they came with their uncle in the spring, instead.Fran told them not to jump off the waterfall, because the water was a lot higher and more dangerous in the spring.

One of the boys waved to her as he turned and left, saying “Don’t worry mom, we’ll be fine!”The uncle came back later to report that one of the boys had dove off the waterfall and been sucked under.The second boy had jumped in to save him, and they both drowned.

Fran told us that she had quit her job for two years after that.

Another story was of a woman who had come to the park to camp for the first time on her honeymoon with her husband.They had skinny-dipped in one of the pools there.Every year, they came back on their anniversary to camp and skinny-dip in the pools.They grew old together and eventually the husband passed away.The woman continued to return on their anniversary, camp in the park and skinny-dip in the pools.One year, when she was in her seventies, she went into the pool to skinny dip and found it too difficult to climb out.

He calls for help were headed by a group of boys in their mid teens, who rescued her and helped her to safety.

As the old woman was being assisted, Fran noticed one of the boys looking disturbed and agitated, very upset.

“What’s the matter, hun?” asked Fran.

“I’m never having sex.”Said theboy

At this point in the story Fran stopped and looked at us.“Because our bodies DO change you know?”

Um, Sure. In theory.

We did some sight-seeing along the gravel road, hoping to see some moose, or other wildlife.

I noticed a little brown frog, and as we were all gathered around examining it, a pick-up truck came down the road.I was full of men.Probably seven or eight guys.

“What you lookin’ at, ladies?” they asked.

“A frog.”We answered.

“A frog?Is that all, how big is he?”

“Not eatin’size.”We answered.

“Any ya’ll seen a lost dog around here?We’re huntin’ and we lost our dog.”

“What’s his name?”

“Bucky.”

“What kind of dog is he?”

“Half black lab half coon-hound.”

Barb finally asked, because of their outrageous southern accents; “Where you boys from?”

“Jawa-ga” came the drawled reply.

“Oh no, you’re putting’ that on.That’s TOO perfect to be real.”

“No, ma’m, we’re not puttin’ it on.We’re from Jawa-ga.”

More chit-chatting, and then they drive off, content in the knowledge that we would be keeping an eye out for “Bucky”.

About an hour later, when we returned for our car, Fran said “Those boys in the red truck told me to apologize for them.”

“Why?”

“They said to tell you there isn’t any dog named Bucky.”

“Bastards!”Barb said, “Those evil, evil bastards!I was all worried about Bucky.And they FOOLED us!US!How did they manage to fool us?WE’RE the ones who pull that kind of schtick on other people.Nobody pulls that sort of thing on us. Ohhhh!They were good.”

So we told Fran to tell those boys when they got back that we were awful sorry about Bucky.We saw a dog just like they described, but he didn’t come when he was called, so we decided to try to stun him with a rock so we could catch him, and poor Bucky died.

Then we told her to tell him that we found “Bucky”, and liked him and decided to take him home.

And then we came up with all sorts of other things for her to tell them…and finally we just said “You’re good with stories, just tell ‘em something good.”

We took a picture of ourselves with Fran, and said “goodbye”, did some more sight-seeing and then headed for “home”, the cabin in N.E. Harbor and the secret dungeon trap for unwary travelers that lurked within it.

Got up at oh-five-dark-and-sleepy, Rocky got me to the airport in plenty of time.I got on the plane, plane took off on time, no bumps, no hitches, no muss no fuss.

Well, maybe a little muss and fuss.I sat next to a grumpy, incommunicative little man who passed noxious gas the whole flight.But that’s sort of something I’ve come to expect.Travel has a deleterious effect on some people’s digestion.

Got to the airport in Boston, found out Barb was in a completely different terminal, but she got there in enough time to orient herself and find where I would be.

Good thing too, because my eyes were watery and difficult to focus for a while after I got off the plane.

I got my suitcase, and Barb and I hiked to the shuttle bus area where we looked for our shuttle to Enterprise Rental.We saw every other possible type of rental car shuttle, but no Enterprise.Barb went back to the rental car phone bank to make a call, and three Enterprise shuttles came all in one glob while she was gone.

At Enterprise, we were greeted by a fully-staffed counter of freshly-scrubbed and smiling faces in shirts and ties.And I mean greeted, handed bottles of cold spring water, had our hands shaken, were asked about our flights, checked in promptly, and given excellent directions to our destination (including an offer to print out a Google Map, which Rocky had already done for me.)

We got on the road, and began our aimless wander up the coast of Main, taking wrong turns there, and right turns that turned out to be wrong there, and wrong turns that were actually right at the other place…

Oh, that reminds me of something I wanted to say:

“HEY NEW ENGLAND!!!!YOUR SIGNAGE SU-DIDDELY-UCKS!”

There, just had to get that off my chest.

We stopped at Red’s Eats in Wiscasset on Sue’s recommendation (she had been through there days earlier) and the lobster roll, crab cakes and fried zucchini were delicious.The ice cream was rather…eh.

Anice couple we met in line gave us their card, and a sales pitch for a patent medicine that was made from a rare asian herbthat would cure all migraines and cluster headaches and a whole list of other seemingly unrelated conditions.It had changed their lives.Uh huh.

More driving, beautiful country, lots of fun chatting and catching up and such, and we finally arrived at N.E. Harbor, where our “cabin” was.We drove all over the place trying to figure out where 76 Harbor Street was, only to eventually find out that somebody (who shall remain nameless) had given us the wrong address and it was actually 76 Summit.

Our friend Alicia, her two daughters and Sue’s daughter walked down to rescue us.There was much rejoicing.

We were exhausted, so I pulled the air-mattresses Sue had loaned us out of my suit case, and we began blowing them up.I got light-headed pretty quickly, so while Barb took a turn at trying to inflate one of them, I went in search of something to help.I thought we might hook a vacuum hose up to the exhaust and use a vacuum to blow up the mattress.I’ve done this before, so I asked about a vacuum.

“In the closet” said Sue.

“What closet?” I asked.

“There’s a door in the entryway.”

I looked around the entry-way, and sure enough, there was a door.I opened it, and there was a defunct dust-buster sitting on a shelf an arm’s length in front of me in a very shallow closet, cloaked in shadow as it was late at night, and that corner of the entry-way was not well lit.I pulled it out and examined it.The thing had probably not worked for ten years.There was rust on it.I went to put it back, and it tipped off the narrow shelf.As I leaned in to right it, I took a step forward…into NOTHING.

My hands shot out and braced against the wall in front of me and the wall to the left.My back slammed up against a shelf that ran along the wall to my right, and friction held me there as I yelled, groped with my foot for the floor that wasn’t there, and yelled again.

More foot-groping, one more yell.Three seemed like a good number of yells.

“What?” Sue demanded, sounding irritated.

“No floor!No floor!”I yelled, or something like that.It’s a little fuzzy.I was still holding myself up, one foot on the threshold, braced at three points by hands and back against walls, and most of my weight dangling over blackness that should have been a floor.

Sue’s daughter brought a flashlight, and shined it down the hole, revealing a steep stair-ladder Chimera going almost straight down into a stone-walled basement filled with junk.

I pushed HARD with my right hand against the back wall, and got myself back out of the “closet”, shut the door, replaced the hook-and-eye latch, and tried to catch my breath.

“That door was sealed off, we couldn’t get it open.” Said Sue, still sounding irritated. She also pointed me to the identical door on the opposite side of the entry-way...where the closet was. It was not immediatly apparent from the side I was on at the time.

“It opened right up,” I replied.

Then I realized that I was probably walking into an already tense situation, and with Sue and Amanda’s help, Barb and I got the air-mattresses inflated, and I laid down and listened to everyone debate endlessly how the logistics were going to work to get everyone somewhere that they wanted to be tomorrow.

Eventually, I said something like, “I don’t care what we do tomorrow, if I’m not asleep in 20 minutes, someone is going to die.”

Plans for the next day were hastily concluded, and I fell asleep to dream of falling and being stuck in a dark dungeon with rats all night.